But it happened only because Big Jack Charlton missed out on trying to poach Paul Gascoigne for the Republic of Ireland... by ONE week.

Former Ireland boss Charlton has ­revealed how the famously daft-as-a-brush Geordie could easily have ended up at Italia 90 in green.

Charlton was Newcastle manager when Gazza first broke through at St James’ Park. And after taking the Irish job, he set about trying to hijack Gascoigne in the weeks before he received his first England Under-21 call-up in 1987.

Gazza was convinced he was Geordie through and through, so ­dismissed the idea of representing Ireland.

Charlton – who turned the likes of Andy Townshend and Tony Cascarino into Ireland legends – only found out too late from Gazza’s mum, Carol, that he did have Irish grandparents.

Otherwise, Big Jack, now 80, says he is convinced he could have persuaded Gascoigne to switch allegiance to the Republic.

“The problem was getting him to play for Ireland and if only I’d spoken to his mother a week earlier, I might have had the chance.

“He actually qualified to play for Ireland but no one knew it at the time and we only just missed out on him.

National treasure: But England ace Gazza almost ended up in Irish green (Image: Getty)

"Before he played for England or the Under-21s, I was talking to him at a game one day and said, ‘Are you sure the Gascoigne family hasn’t got a bit of Irish to it?’ And Gazza said, ‘Nah, we’re 100 per cent Geordie in my family.’

“I think he played for England the following week, and I didn’t really think any more of it until Carol told me Gazza’s grandmother on her side was Irish, and he did qualify for us.

“And I do wonder what would have happened if we’d got him.”

Charlton’s Italia 90 Ireland side made the quarter-finals – where they lost to Italy.

And the former Republic manager added: “If we could reach the quarter-finals of the World Cup without him, but with the quality players we had in the team at that time, what would we have been like with him in the side, in his prime?

“I think I could have persuaded him, if I’d known. He still calls me his second dad and I do think I could have talked him into it.”

As it turned out, their paths did cross at that epic World Cup finals – when England and Ireland met in Cagliari for the opening Group F match of the tournament.

Charlton’s old friend Bobby Robson had selected the young and raw Newcastle midfielder for the ­tournament which would change his life.

But when the teams arrived at the Stadio Sant’Elia, Gascoigne, who was notoriously anxious in the pre-match build-up, sought out Charlton’s advice to get him through one of the biggest games of his career.

Charlton said: “The two doors to the dressing rooms were opposite each other, so you could see into the England dressing room from where we were.

“Just after we’d arrived, Gazza clocked our John, my son, in the England dressing room, and he’d called him over. He said, ‘John, go get your father for me. I’m frightened. I need to speak to him.’

“So John came into the Ireland dressing room and he told me Gazza needed to speak to me. This is just over an hour before kick-off and I had my own problems to worry about – mainly how to stop Gazza.

“One of the first people I’d bumped into was Steve McMahon, and I discovered that he wasn’t playing. That almost certainly meant Gazza would be ­starting alongside Bryan Robson.

“I had enough on my plate thinking about how to stop that pair, as well as Chris Waddle and John Barnes.

“We went into the corridor and Gazza was all over the place. He was a nervous wreck. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said. ‘I’m frightened.’ So I just said, ‘Don’t be frightened. Yes, it’s a big game, but forget that, just go out and play how you normally play. Just make sure you don’t play as well as you normally play.

“I think he just needed someone who he knew who would not fill his head full of rubbish but would to a certain degree look after him and that’s what I did.”